All The Wild Ones | Wildfire Series

Endgame

NESSA

"Madie?"

I didn't know why the hell Madie would be calling me at 8am on a Saturday, but alarm bells immediately started ringing in my head.

"Oh, thank god." Her frantic voice sounded muted in my ears. I yawned, trying to pop them. "I woke you up."

I rolled over, intending to get out of bed, not wanting to bother Grayson, but his arm flew around me, tugging me back beneath the covers.

"Why is it a good thing that you woke me up?"

It seemed like a very bad thing to me.

"Because that means that you haven't checked your phone yet."

That also did not seem like a good thing.

"Haven't checked my phone? What?"

Pulling the screen away from my ear, I went to minimize the call so I could investigate, but Madie's voice screamed through the speaker, stopping me.

"Don't, Nessa! Just turn it off. I'll be there in ten minutes."

It was 8am on a Saturday, and this didn't compute with me.

"You're coming over?"

"Yes." She sounded exasperated. Worried. "Put some clothes on. And don't let Grayson distract you."

Grayson must have heard that because his finger began to trace around the edges of my nipple, causing me to shiver. He tilted his hips up, letting me know that he was very much ready to distract me.

"Wednesday."

Right. Right, Madie was coming over.

"Okay, Madie. Okay."

****

The first thing that Madie said when she walked in the front door of Grayson's house was, "You looked, didn't you?"

I could barely stomach a reply. I hadn't moved from the couch in Grayson's living room since I opened my Twitter account. "You had far too much faith in my self-control."

"Oh, Nessa," Madie cooed, coming over to envelope me in a warm hug. Tears leaked from my eyes, and I didn't care enough to hold them back. I didn't care about anything right now. Except for maybe how Grayson was staring out the window, unspeaking, with his back to me.

Bren walked over to him, and my boyfriend turned his head. They exchanged a glance. Bren leaned in, mumbling something I couldn't hear. And then Grayson, with his tense jaw, and even tighter back muscles, nodded and went back to staring out the window. "Thank you," he mumbled.

It was the first thing he'd said since he saw what was on my phone.

Bren tipped his head in response to Grayson and then faced me. "Beau is back at your place. He's working on reporting it, and if that fails, hacking the internet."

Madie scoffed. "No, Collins is working on hacking the internet. Beau is just staring at her like an idiot."

Bren nodded after a short consideration. "Okay, that's probably more accurate. We stopped by on the way here to fill them in."

"Yeah, they called me," I choked out.

"They—" Madie tried to jump in, mad as hell. It was clear she had been trying to shelter me for as long as possible. But as much as I appreciated it, it was a useless effort.

"I gave them permission to watch it to see how bad it was," I explained. "So I wouldn't have to."

I closed my eyes. I knew I should be grateful to my friends for helping me. And I was. But I was so lost in everything else to feel thankful right now. I didn't know how to show them how much I loved them because love seemed like such a faraway emotion at the moment.